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Registered just to post that I am having the exact same problem. I noticed today that my Emsisoft anti-malware icon was greyed out. Opened the program and it says that it's been 2 days since the last update. And when I try to initialize an update it tries for a second or two (Initializing...), then just stops. No error message, no updating, nothing.

Thinking perhaps it was on my end somehow, I tried messing with the firewall on my router, doing some port forwarding etc etc. But noting seems to have changed the problem. Doing google searches on this, it seems there have been instances in the past (some from several years ago) where lots of people had the same problem.

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Are you using version 10 of EAM? If so updates for this on XP and Vista were turned off at the weekend.

XP and Vista haven't officially been supported on those operating systems since 2016.

Well, in my case that might be the problem then. I primarily use my XP machine simply because it's still super reliable, fast, convenient and is what I'm used to. I do remember Emsisoft cutting 'official' support for XP quite a while back, but luckily I was still getting updates with no issues (due to the program version I had). So I take it they have completely abandoned XP users now? What a shame.

I understand cutting off support for software updates, but why stop the signature updates? That should be universal.

I'm honestly getting a bit tired of software companies dictating what OS we use by denying program support like this. Every time I start Chrome in XP I am reminded of how they stopped support for XP while more and more websites annoyingly stop working correctly over time. Is Emsisoft going to start denying support for Windows 10 users when M$ releases their next OS this year or next? My guess is, yes, of course. Sheep will be sheep.

Guess I'll have to finally make the switch to my Windows 10 PC, and lose a metric ton of convenient programs, features, browser add-ons, OS control and privacy as a result in order to "be more secure". Thanks Emsisoft. Boy, I can't wait until I get used to using Windows 10 only to have all software support discontinued when M$ starts following suite to Apple by releasing a new OS each year (and denying support for the previous OS in order to force people to upgrade). Yeah, gonna be great!

Either way, while I am quite upset, but I do appreciate the reply with the information about the ultimate termination of XP support this weekend. Now if only Emsisoft could bring Online Armor support for Windows 10, that would be absolutely epic. Because there is really nothing like OA on Windows 10 now, closest I've found is Comodo, which is what I'll be using for HIPS/Firewall until something better comes along. But OA is still the absolute KING of HIPS/Firewalls IMO, and is one of the biggest reasons I haven't fully adopted using Windows 10 yet.

Really stinks Emsisoft completely abandoned OA shortly after buying out Tall Emu, the program was hugely popular for a reason. All this "autopilot" garbage we have nowadays is just too simplistic and is only designed with the mainstream consumer in mind. I personally want fine-grain control over everything happening on my PC (but also be easy to configure/understand). OA gave this to me, flawlessly. And so far the only other company that seems to be aware of this is Comodo, which ironically where the ones that kinda started the hardcore HIPS/Firewall thing right before OA took off as a huge success back in the day. I'm glad they still offer a product that is supported in Windows 10 that does allow a user to have ultimate control with their PC, but I would much rather have something just like OA was. Likely never going to happen with Emsisoft, but either way, that is my feedback.

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I can understand the sadness that you feel now that you are no longer able to use EAM and perhaps even XP now. Over the years many softwares change and users move on .. it is the nature of things. (Online Armor was also one of my favourite all time apps ! )

It was in 2015 that Emsisoft first announced their intention to cease support for EAM and EEK on XP and Vista in 2016

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I have to jump in and also say if OA was hugely popular they wouldn't have abandoned it, but sales kept dropping and the refund rate on those sales kept increasing so it made no sense to continue it. Also since XP is no longer compatible technology, slowly more and more companies are going to drop support.

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Wait! Even though I've paid for protection on my XP system it is being turned off? Do I get a refund for my remaining 136 days? Why is this even necessary? I've been a customer for many many years. No respect.

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We had to turn off XP updates because the latest scan engine and its signatures are no longer compatible with it. Instead of pretending that we could protect you from malware (which we effectively can't because XP is full of holes and flaws that aren't gonna be fixed at all) we would rather strongly recommend you to upgrade your computer. If that is for any reason impossible and means that you can't use our software anymore at all, we're happy to issue a refund for the remaining period.

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I'm having the same problem updating. I'm on a Vista PC, been using the software for three years, and have just this morning paid for another year's license! Why wasn't I informed Vista is no longer supported? and can I get my money back??

I do have a new Windows 10 PC, and bought a license for 2 machines. I'm happy to buy a new one for that machine, but obviously I'd like a refund first.

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Maybe - but they didn't stop supporting XP. They kept on supplying updates. So what is a user to think? I'm thinking no problem, my XP machine is still updating. Guess they changed their mind. Now almost 2 years later, I see my updates hanging. How can anyone expect to link this 'hanging issue' with a notice that came out two years earlier?

Emsisoft should have sent a notice closer to the time when the updates would actually stop working. Additionally, when trying to update on an XP machine, instead of the update hanging at 'Initializing', there should be a notice that 'updates are no longer supported on XP'. That would have told the user what was going on instead of letting them think there's a problem with EAM.

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Maybe - but they didn't stop supporting XP. They kept on supplying updates. So what is a user to think? I'm thinking no problem, my XP machine is still updating. Guess they changed their mind. Now almost 2 years later, I see my updates hanging. How can anyone expect to link this 'hanging issue' with a notice that came out two years earlier?

Please note that Emsisoft Anti-Malware for Windows XP hasn't been updated (as in program updates) in over 2 years, and we never intended on continuing long-term database update support for it. In fact, we discontinued our own database updates for it over a year and a half ago, and those still running Emsisoft Anti-Malware on Windows XP have only been receiving BitDefender database updates. We've decided that it is time to stop redistributing those BitDefender updates for Windows XP, as all they are doing is giving those on Windows XP a false sense of security.

We highly recommend that you upgrade to a newer Operating System that is still supported. It doesn't matter if that's a newer version of Windows, or something free like Linux or BSD, as long as you'll be receiving security updates from whoever makes it. New vulnerabilities are discovered almost every day for every major Operating System (Windows, Linux, BSD, MacOS, Android, etc) so it is absolutely critical that you are able to receive security updates from whoever made the Operating System to help keep you and your data safe.

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Very sad to hear I'll no longer be able to use EAM on my beloved Vista system . Been using Emsisoft products since the days of a-squared. Not only for their excellent protection, but equally for their respect for users privacy. It'll be hard to find a replacement, if any.

I gotta agree with others in this thread though, a simple blog post, or even a forum sticky indicating that database updates were to cease for EAM v.10 last week, would have avoided any confusion. To simply stop updates, with no prior notification, wasn't what I'd expect from Emsisoft.

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We understand that this isn't convenient, and it certainly isn't what everyone wants, but once Microsoft discontinued support for Windows XP and Vista this situation became inevitable. If we continue to provide updates for products that ran on Windows XP and Vista, and people continue using it without realizing the danger, then they could suffer serious security breaches or even lose all of their documents/pictures/videos/etc. to a ransomware infection. The only reason we kept the update feeds online as long as we did was to give everyone a reasonable amount of time to upgrade to newer and safer Operating Systems, and we don't want to put our customers at risk and lull them into a false sense of security by keeping those update feeds online any longer.

As for an announcement, we did publish announcements over 2 years ago that we were ending support. We hoped that customers would understand that database updates for Operating Systems we were discontinuing support for would also end eventually.

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Is there somewhere (in an ftp server, in the pc of another user) a file with the last updates you had for windows xp before you shut them down? i had an 270 mb EEK folder on my hard drive but i had to format my pc for reasons not related with malware or viruses and now i reinstalled EEK 10.0.0.5488 but its only 190 mb because i miss the updated signatures i had before. Unfortunately i didn't had a backup of EEK folder. If someone has it please reply.
Thank you in advance!

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Is there somewhere (in an ftp server, in the pc of another user) a file with the last updates you had for windows xp before you shut them down? i had an 270 mb EEK folder on my hard drive but i had to format my pc for reasons not related with malware or viruses and now i reinstalled EEK 10.0.0.5488 but its only 190 mb because i miss the updated signatures i had before. Unfortunately i didn't had a backup of EEK folder. If someone has it please reply.
Thank you in advance!

EEK isn't going to help with infections on Windows XP, whether it can run on it or not. Windows XP is full of security holes, some of which are extremely severe and trivial to exploit. No one should still be using Windows XP unless it has been permanently disconnected from the Internet.